DISASTER RESPONSEGet Rid of FEMA? Trump-appointed Group to Look at Shifting Disaster Response to States.
Governors and state legislatures may have to bolster their natural disaster response and recovery efforts in the coming years as President Donald Trump looks for ways to shift the federal government’s role onto states.
Governors and state legislatures may have to bolster their natural disaster response and recovery efforts in the coming years as President Donald Trump looks for ways to shift the federal government’s role onto states.
Trump, who proposed doing away with the Federal Emergency Management Agency altogether last week, has since established a 20-member committee via executive order to review the agency and propose ways to overhaul its work.
The fate of the National Flood Insurance Program, managed by FEMA and relied on by more than 4.7 million homeowners, will also be up in the air as the process gets underway.
“I think, frankly, FEMA is not good,” Trump said in North Carolina on Friday. “I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to go and — whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA.”
Trump said he planned to recommend that “FEMA go away and we pay directly — we pay a percentage to the state.”
“But the state should fix this,” Trump said. “If the state did this from the beginning, it would have been a lot better situation.”
‘Full-Scale Review’ for FEMA
Trump’s executive order states that “Americans deserve an immediate, effective, and impartial response to and recovery from disasters.”
“FEMA therefore requires a full-scale review, by individuals highly experienced at effective disaster response and recovery, who shall recommend to the President improvements or structural changes to promote the national interest and enable national resilience,” the executive order says.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will co-chair the 20-member group. The White House did not respond to a question as to when Trump would name the other members.
The council is supposed to release a report later this year comparing FEMA’s response to various natural disasters with how the state affected by the emergency responded. The report is also expected to include how states responded to natural disasters before then-President Jimmy Carter signed in executive order in 1979 establishing FEMA.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a news conference Monday that he supports reviewing how FEMA operates, but he stopped short of eliminating the agency.
“In my experience, it is very often the case that local workers, people who are working through FEMA, do a pretty good job,” said Johnson, a Republican. “But often, it’s the leadership at the top that can affect the outcome of
